State of the Game: June 2016

June 1st, 2016, 11:01 PM

Welcome, Curio Collectors, to June!

May proved to be a busy month of bug squashes, reward adjustments, and a true test of Dark vs Light with our May the 4th Curio Release. Events continued to evolve, and we started blitzing you with daily PvP, the new “Versus” shop changes, and a better overall schedule based on player feedback. We were also excited to introduce Filipino Chat!

We’ll be packing June full of big fixes, game improvements, and a slew of new Curios, skins, and other exciting developments to get you revved up for summertime! We’ll also be making good on some longstanding issues, like Mythic and Legendary disc fragments, and several Curio bugs you’ve been eager for us to smoosh under our 5PG bootheels. Due to the mobile submission process and some pretty big CQ updates, there might be a slight lag between what we’re exploring in this State of the Game and the time it arrives to you, our Questers: so be sure to keep up-to-date with our weekly Patch Notes to see what’s new! That being said, let’s get to it!

Weekly Updates
Get the latest news on our weekly updates with the Patch Notes: Now posting on Thursdays! here.

Welcome New Players!
Our New Player/First Time Buyer pack is going to get an overhaul. It hasn’t been updated since the early days of the game and is woefully out of date. Once we update it we will offer it to the entire CQ Community for a limited time, including seasoned and new players.

Curios: from quick fixes to major makeovers
Over the coming months we will be tuning Curios as we strive for better game balance. Nothing is ever written in stone, anything can change, and we hope in the end that this creates a fun and dynamic game, one that is alive and breathing.

We’ve heard your concerns about Bastion’s Grounded Attack, which speaks to a larger issue in-game: when a particular Curio’s skillset or mana use leaves you with no option but to Quit a battle. We are fast at work on a big-picture fix and appreciate both your bug reports and your patience!

Our first makeover is already on our plates...Void: The Minion Master. Often, the best makeovers start from the inside out, so stay tuned!

To that end let's talk about Singularity. Singularity is currently a must have for Survival Arena events. If you have Sing, you are at a distinct advantage. If you don't, you are at a distinct disadvantage. In game design we might call this an "optimal path". Optimal Paths aren't always a bad thing, but they generally are. Games are best when there are multiple ways to succeed. When there's only one way, and that way is behind a paywall, well... it doesn't make for the best, or fairest, gaming experience. Add into this that SA is a competitive event and you begin to see the problem. So we are looking at Singularity but we aren't looking to do anything hasty. We'd like to bring Singularity in line with other top tier Curios while maintaining his play style. We also understand that nerfing a character isn't always the best feeling thing. It's something that has to be done but we want to get it right, so be patient with us. Also, to those who have been feeling outclassed in Survival Arena because you don't have this one Curio, we're sorry. We understand that it's not fun to lose because you don’t have Singularity and we'll get there: we’ll improve this experience. To those who DO have him, when the time comes please keep in mind, you got a few months of easy mode and all the loot that comes with that.

Singularity and Void are actively being worked on right now. As we mentioned earlier, we're looking at other Curios: Gustwing, Razorfin, Erakka, Sakurasaur, Flamoth, and Jenite are among other Curios on our list for reevaluation.

Badging
Badging refers to those little circles with numbers that pop up on buttons in the game to let you know that something new has arrived, much like what you see on the chat bubble when there are new messages in world chat. To start with, we'll be badging new event starts, event loot collection, shop changes, and patch notes (most people don't even know where those are). On mobile those players will see the badge appear on the app icon, notifying them that something in the game has changed. We are actively working on a badging feature that looks to be on schedule for a June release, but sometimes in development you start working on things, "kick over some rocks," and find something that turns a small feature into something bigger issue than anticipated. If that happens we may push badging to the next month. Over time we'll add more badging, since it’s a really useful feature for new and seasoned players.

Spring Cleaning for Clubs
It’s nearly summertime, meaning we have just a couple more weeks to finish up that spring cleaning! We’ve noticed that there are a host of old clubs who are defunct, with no active members. Any clubs that have had no active members for more than 90 days will be disbanded. Their name and tag will become available for use at that time.

Autobattle!
We’re aspiring to make grinding a little easier on players as they quest for Coins, XP, or Loot. We also want to accommodate players who are willing to accept some loss of strategic efficiency for a little more ease of play. So, it's our pleasure to announce the addition of Auto-Battle! Auto-Battle will be a toggle-able button, which looks like a "play" icon. While enabled, the AI will take over control of your Curios and combat for you, allowing you to take your hands off the wheel. Be warned, though, the AI is not as good as you are, especially at things like mana management or skill synergies. Challenging battles will still need a human touch for best results. Grinding through simpler battles, though, has never been easier. Also, if you are planning on making a bunch of Auto-battle runs you may want to consider which skills you have loaded. Limiting those choices with the AI in mind might produce better results. Good luck, collectors! Grind on!

Boosts
Our baleful eye is turning towards boosts. We'll be starting by adding some new boosts to the game, both for the store and as exclusive rewards in the chests.

Purchase Restoration
There has been an ongoing issue with mobile devices occasionally failing in the middle of a transaction, resulting in a charge from Apple or Google but without your gems! (Boo!) Given the nature of mobile carriers and data transfer, this is nigh impossible to fully prevent. Luckily there are other solutions! In the MISC tab (the 3 lines on the left side tray, toward the bottom) we will be installing a "Restore Purchases" button. This button will make a call to the platform and double check their receipts against ours. If there are any discrepancies, it will automatically restore the purchase and reward the gems. This button will have a cooldown on it, as sometimes these "hand-shakes" take a few minutes and pressing it repeatedly will just louse that up. As always, our goal is to make purchasing secure, safe, and easy. If there are any issues with this button - or any purchases you make - please contact support. That being said, in light of a purchasing error, this button should cut Support wait time out of the loop and get your gems to you in the fastest way possible.

Can you hear me now? Mobile connection catastrophes
We're attempting to fix the issue where mobile devices can't connect while not on wifi. This is an elusive bug, and one that we can't reproduce on our end, which is the worst! It seems largely focused on AT&T customers who are on iPhone6, though not exclusively. While we continue to explore other avenues, we'll be doing some clean up of our data, which should improve overall performance for everyone. This is very important to us, as anything that blocks people from playing is weak-sauce. The point of mobile is to play wherever you have signal, and we get that, so we'll keep poking at this until we uncover its mysteries. It's tricky, so be patient and please let us know if your status changes. If it stops happening, we want to know. If it's still happening, we want to know. We will find this bug and SMASH IT! ...eventually.

Contests
Submissions for the Ignitar Inspire-a-Curio-Skin Contest really sparked some excitement here at 5PG Headquarters. Our Devs were ablaze with inspiration, and are already hard at work preparing his shiny new look to be released early this month.

Stay tuned for weekly mini contests throughout the month of June for your chance at some big laughs and fun prizes as we gear up for summer, and a grander scale competition come July.

Conclusion
Thank you for valuable community feedback! Please continue to let us know how you think we can make Curio Quest even better!

can we have trophy system when we look into player we get to know if he is top player and i would like ull to add league mode for he event should be for a month and what about new zones last time i heard about it was in 11 th feb and are we gonna have one zone or 3 to 9 zones i prefer the story to end in perfect manner

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Welcome New Players!
Our New Player/First Time Buyer pack is going to get an overhaul. It hasn’t been updated since the early days of the game and is woefully out of date. Once we update it we will offer it to the entire CQ Community for a limited time, including seasoned and new players.

Any clue when that will happen and how long it will stay up.. Dont want to miss it

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Right now we're A/B testing different packs. I expect this to take another 2-3 weeks. Once we've settled on a pack we'll make the offer to everyone so they don't feel like they missed out on an opportunity only offered to new players. We'll leave it up for a week when we do, to give people plenty of time to see it.

Oh my god thank you for addressing nerfs/buffs. It's been too long! One curio you might want to look at is Amgar. Too many times I've been the recipient of a two-turn stun that shouldn't be a thing. Honestly, stuns/silences shouldn't be a thing, unless it's a 1 for 1, spend one turn to stun for one turn, no damage and no healing. Not this Hieron do 10k damage then stun. And limit the power of Gambit, Jenite, and any other curio with a thorn buff. Their damage ratios on those buffs are just too high. Yeah you can just kill them in just one hit, but then you're doing 15k+ damage at once (at least) and that's not really fair either. Oh, also about Bastion. I have him, and I don't even use the stupid grounded loop. It's unfair. Just nerf it to 4/5 turn cooldown but increase the damage a bit and lower the mana by one.

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Right now we're treating the Bastion grounded as a bug. You shouldn't be locked out of play in those circumstances. It's a high priority for us to fix this. I can't say exactly where it will fit in but I expect we'll see a fix to that bug in the coming few weeks.

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We're taking it slow because we've got several issues on our plate and we want to get this one right. That being said if we miss the mark we'll keep noodling. I say this because I understand that there have been precedents in the past where Curios were over nerfed and then never touched again. I don't want to do that. I'd rather we keep tuning until it's right or close enough to be viable.

Also, can you be more specific on exactly what you're doing to those listed curios? Some, like Flamoth and Sing are pretty good and are looking at nerfs. But others like Void and Gustwing are currently some of the worst mythics in the game and honestly prevented me from investing in dark and air. This would help us players know how and what curios might change, so that we have a clue when we invest in a sale.

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Flamoth is generally considered to be over nerfed and is in need of a small buff. Void, Gustwing, and Razorfin are on the list for buffs or complete overhauls. Void is first on the list and then Razorfin. Razofin has just risen on the priority list cuz we're making a fun skin for him for 4th of July. And who wants to buy a cool skin for a lame Curio? So he'll be getting a buff/retuning to make him more viable, due early July.

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We have to do a submission to Apple, which takes a couple weeks. Before we start that process we're slipping in a couple more client side features. So I'm guessing... 3 weeks(ish)? Provided nothing goes with Apple certification.

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So happy to hear that some nerfs/buffs and other great updates are happening! Also I just wanted to check on how the new ignitar skin is coming along? I am supposed to receive it 1 week early since I won the contest, will it just appear in the "skins" area or how do i get it?

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We'll let you know it's happening. I'm guessing next week? I saw a preliminary and it's pretty hawt. (and I don't use misspelled puns lightly) Through a slight "oops" on my part I requested that it get evos of skin, which normally doesn't happen with our special skins, and probably won't happen again. So it should be pretty slick.

When it is finished it will be granted to you by Fury. We are trying to figure out how to make it available only to you for 1 week... that might wind up being harder then we thought. Still looking at some options though.

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Doh! I spoke too soon. It appears that the mistaken request for 3 evos of the skin, which was mistakenly embarked upon by the artist, has been corrected. There won't be 3 evos of the skin. Womp Womp! Sorry for the series of mistakes! (including me getting your hopes up) :/